Ledger in 2025: a pivotal year for security and digital identity

On 1 September, twenty-one of the world's largest financial institutions announced that they were jointly creating a dollar stablecoin. The press release gives neither the name of the company, nor that of the token, nor the blockchain. And a US rule already deprives them of their only obvious selling point.

Sixty votes were needed. The Clarity Act secured 49, failing to achieve even a simple majority. Not a single Democrat voted in favour. Four Republicans voted against. The story of a failure, and what it leaves behind: two regulators drafting rules in isolation that the next administration could dismantle.

Ten days, five incidents, one single underlying flaw: convincing a system that a deposit had taken place. The biggest theft of the year was made possible by a patch that had been lying dormant for a month in a public repository. And the gap between 336,000 dollars and 319 million is not down to the severity of the bug.

The US Senate votes in three weeks. Not on the bill itself, but on the right to debate it. Sixty votes are needed; the Republicans have 53, and not a single Democrat has pledged support. Here is how the mechanics work, and the three stumbling blocks.

On 18 August, the US Wall Street regulator unveiled the text the sector had been waiting a decade to see: two exemptions for raising funds using tokens, and, above all, an exit route from security status. A look at what it does, and what it doesn't.

On 19 August, a dozen industry executives were received in the Roosevelt Room and then in the Oval Office. The market surged in the aftermath. What was said, what was left unsaid, and why two words raise questions.